Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Man sentenced to 165 years in prison for sexually abusing children in Haiti By Elisha Fieldstadt, NBC News 7/31/2013

A man who sexually abused children at a center for poor youth that he operated in Haiti was sentenced to 165 years in prison in Florida on Wednesday, according to prosecutors.

Matthew Andrew Carter, 68, was charged in February with five counts of travelling in foreign commerce from the U.S. to Haiti in order to pursue illicit sexual conduct with children and one count of attempting to do so, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Florida. Judge Joan A. Lenard sentenced Carter to 165 years in prison — the maximum prosecutors requested during Carter's February hearing. The judge tacked on a lifetime of supervised release if he's ever freed.

A U.S. Department of Justice statement said the evidence presented at Carter’s trial showed he traveled to Haiti under the guise of helping impoverished children at a home he ran called Morning Star. The children who lived at Morning Star came from homes in which their families could not financially support them.

Army Child Abuse Cases Jump 40% From 2009: Report (PLUS: What's Being Done About It) The Huffington Post By Eleanor Goldberg 07/31/2013
Incidents of child abuse in the Army are on the rise, an alarming trend that coincides with the return of tens of thousands of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to an investigation conducted by the Army Times, 3,698 cases of Army child abuse and neglect were reported last year, a 40 percent increase from 2009.

While the military has not drawn any concrete conclusions as to why such crimes are on the rise, some experts say that abusers may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which could lead to their taking their frustrations out on their children. Others cited in the report were quick to note that this type of maltreatment doesn’t always come at the hands of the spouse wearing a uniform.

A 2007 Pentagon study concluded that mothers were three times more likely to mistreat their children while their soldier husbands were away, than when they were home.

....While the Army’s intense public attention has been focused on suicides, domestic violence and sex assaults in the ranks, Liyah is part of an epidemic of child abuse inside the Army so under the radar that even top brass were unaware of its scope and an alarming spike in cases. Nearly 30,000 children have suffered abuse or neglect in Army homes over the past decade, an Army Times investigation shows.

Beatings, torture and starvation claimed the lives of 118 Army children.

More than 1,400 children were subjected to sexual abuse.

“The Army put a lot of focus on domestic violence because there’s been a lot of political pressure,” said Dr. Rene Robichaux, social work programs manager at Army Medical Command. “There hasn’t been a concurrent interest in child abuse.”

Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. John Campbell said he was not aware of the extent of the epidemic.

When the Army suspects child abuse or neglect, Campbell said, “we’ll investigate and prosecute and try to make sure we have the right program in place to take care of the soldiers and their families and do what’s right there.”

Of the 29,552 cases of child abuse and neglect in active-duty Army families from 2003 through 2012, according to Army Central Registry data, 15,557 were committed by soldiers, the others by civilians — mostly spouses.

The Army’s rate of child abuse was 4.5 cases per 1,000 children for 2011. The civilian rate was 27.4 per 1,000 children, according to the Children’s Bureau of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Senior figures in the Benedictine religious order are planning their own inquiry into harrowing allegations that monks sexually and physically abused dozens of boys at two schools in Scotland.

Police in Scotland have launched an investigation into disclosures by former pupils at Fort Augustus in the Highlands and Carlekemp Priory school near Edinburgh that monks subjected them to systematic violence and sexual assaults, including claims that one now deceased monk raped five boys.

Dom Richard Yeo, the head of the UK's largest Benedictine group of congregations, said he had already been contacted by detectives from Police Scotland over the allegations, detailed in a BBC Scotland documentary on Monday.

In May the Observer revealed that a police investigation had begun into Fort Augustus after one pupil, Andrew Lavery, accused monks there of "systematic, brutal, awful torture", which included being locked alone for days at a time in a room.

That included sexual assaults by monks, while other ex-pupils spoke of repeated bullying and sexually predatory behaviour....

The BBC programme, Sins of the Fathers, alleged that nine monks at the schools repeatedly beat, sexually assaulted and, in one case, raped boys in their care over several decades. Victims of the abuse complained but their testimony was ignored. One priest allegedly involved, now living in Sydney, Australia, has been suspended by the Australian church after the BBC tracked him down....

Dozens of pupils at exclusive Roman Catholic boarding schools in Scotland have alleged they were sexually and physically abused by monks, one of whom allegedly raped at least five boys.

Nine Benedictine monks who taught at the Fort Augustus Abbey school in the Highlands and its preparatory school in East Lothian have been accused of repeatedly beating, sexually assaulting and verbally abusing boys in their care over several decades.

One monk, Father Aidan Duggan, who taught at Fort Augustus and Carlkemp prep school, which both closed in the 1990s, was accused by five ex-pupils of raping and sexually abusing them, but they claim their allegations were ignored and rejected by two headteachers, according to the BBC.

Duggan, an Australian, died in 2004 after returning to become a parish priest in Sydney.

Another priest, Father Chrysostom Alexander, now 77, is also alleged to have abused one pupil at the Fort Augustus school in the 1970s.

Alexander, also an Australian, returned to work in Sydney and has now been suspended by the Catholic church after he was challenged about the allegations by a BBC journalist. Alexander did not respond to the allegations.

The allegations, in a BBC documentary Sins of the Fathers, broadcast on BBC1 Scotland on Monday, are now being investigated by Police Scotland in the latest in a series of scandals about abuse by priests and misconduct by senior figures within the Scottish church....

One former pupil, Donald Macleod, told the documentary that Duggan had effectively groomed him before raping him when he was 14.

Macleod tried to raise the alarm but the then headteacher refused to hear about the alleged rape, warning him that lies were a mortal sin.

The BBC documentary alleges the Benedictine authorities failed to warn their Australian counterparts about the allegations against Duggan, who continued to abuse in Sydney.

The Benedictines are also accused of using Fort Augustus as a secret "dumping ground" for problem priests who were removed from their parishes after being accused of abusing children.

The Abbot President of the Benedictines, which ran Fort Augustus, has apologised to any victims of child abuse, after the BBC uncovered evidence of serious physical and sexual abuse at the boarding school.

A six month investigation by the BBC has found a multitude of allegations of sexual and physical abuse over 30 years at the prestigious Fort Augustus Abbey School in Scotland. Two Australian men are at the centre of the allegations, including one who's been suspended from the Catholic Church pending an investigation.
Ashley Hall

Transcript

ASHLEY HALL: Donald McLeod was 13 when he went to the Abbey in 1961.

DONALD MCLEOD: Um...

INTERVIEWER: He raped you?

DONALD MCLEOD: Yeah, I guess so. Yes.

ASHLEY HALL: The man who attacked him was an Australian, Aidan Duggan. Donald McLeod says Duggan groomed him during piano and photography lessons, and then, when he was 14, Duggan sexually assaulted him.

The youngest of the rescued children was 9 years old, according to Reuters....

"Many times the children that are taken in in these types of criminal activities are children that are disaffected, they are from broken homes, they may be on the street themselves," FBI Acting Executive Assistant Director Kevin Perkins said, according to the network. "They are really looking for a meal, they are looking for shelter, they are looking for someone to take care of them."

Another victim, identified as "Alex," told interviewers she became a prostitute at the age of 16, when she felt she had no other options to feed and clothe herself.

The raids also resulted in the arrests of 150 "pimps" and other individuals, according to an FBI press release.

The rescues were the product of Operation Cross Country, a three-day nationwide initiative to aid victims of underage prostitution....

Michael Madison Indicted For Deaths Of 3 Ohio Women
By REGINA GARCIA CANO 07/29/13
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A man accused in the deaths of three women whose bodies were found wrapped in trash bags was indicted Monday on 14 counts including multiple charges of aggravated murder and kidnapping.

Michael Madison is being charged in connection with the deaths of Shirellda H. Terry, Angela H. Deskins and Shetisha D. Sheeley....

A Cuyahoga County grand jury charged Madison with six counts of aggravated murder, two for each victim under different legal theories, plus three counts of kidnapping, three counts of gross abuse of a corpse, one count of rape and one count of having weapons under disability, the county prosecutor's office announced Monday....

The indictment states that Madison raped Terry between July 10 and July 19. Terry's family has said she was last seen July 10, leaving a Cleveland elementary school where she had a summer job.

THE late DJ is believed to have abused children in an office in a hospital basement, before his accomplices took them back to their wards.

JIMMY SAVILE recruited NHS staff to bring him young patients to abuse, victims have claimed.

The paedophile DJ attacked children in an office in a hospital basement before his accomplices took them back to the wards.

One victim has told how a porter delivered her to Savile at Leeds General Infirmary, where the star preyed on youngsters while doing volunteer work.

And she claims nurses knew what was going on. The woman, who has given a statement to police, said: "The porter said Jimmy Savile wanted to see me.

"I was flattered so I followed him to the basement. He knocked on the door and Savile said, ‘Come in.' The porter shut the door behind me.

"I suffered a serious sexual assault, then Savile said, ‘You've got to go now.' He opened the door and a different porter took me back to the ward."

The woman alleges that when she told nurses what was going on, they laughed.

"It was apparent they knew what had happened," said the victim, just 16 at the time.

The woman fears Savile's "helpers" will escape exposure in the Speaking Out probe into his crimes at Leeds hospitals. Lawyer Liz Dux, acting for more than 70 victims, said there were three others who claim he was helped by staff.

Names and sexual details of hundreds of girls were scrawled across huge wall in a scene from a horror film

Stunned officers chipped away plaster at a -record shop wall and unveiled a hidden list of names thought to belong to young victims of Jimmy Savile.

The vile register, which contained the names, ages and a disgusting ratings system seemingly used to mark their sexual performance, was scrawled on a secret wall buried behind layers of wallpaper and plaster.

A source revealed: "The wall looked like something straight out of a horror movie. There were lists and lists of names of the victims – it's a shocking discovery."

The list of girls and young women is thought to identify -hundreds of potential new victims abused at the hands of the BBC DJ and it raised fears Savile was at the centre of a celebrity paedophile ring.

Police believe the major breakthrough could lead to further arrests – including other well-known celebrities.

The wall also appeared to contain the names of girls the sick group hoped to target in the future.

Officers who raided the shop in -Greater Manchester after a tip-off will now try to trace the alleged victims.

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Roman Polanski Rape Victim Unveils Startling, Disturbing Photo for Book Cover (Exclusive)
7/24/2013 by Andy Lewis
"The Girl," Samantha Geimer's memoir about being raped by Roman Polanski in 1977 at age 13, features a picture the director took of her days before his assault.

After nearly 35 years of silence, the 13-year-old girl Roman Polanski raped in 1977 is finally telling her full story in The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski.

The Hollywood Reporter's exclusive first look at the cover of the book reveals Samantha Geimer's determination to reclaim her own story.

The cover is a haunting close-up shot of the teenage Geimer (then known by her maiden name, Samantha Gailey), taken on Feb. 20, 1977, less than three weeks before Polanski drugged and raped her at Jack Nicholson's Mulholland Drive home during a modeling shoot when he also gave her alcohol and a quaalude.

But the photo comes with a surprising twist: It was taken by Polanski himself.

He took the pictures during his first photo session with Geimer, now 50, at her home in Woodland Hills, a session in which the director coaxed the young girl to pose topless for him in some of the shots.

Using the photo was part of Geimer's strategy to reclaim her story.

Since the incident, the media has always illustrated the story with a picture of Polanski. Geimer finally wanted to put her own face on the story, and this picture reflected the starting point for her.

The pictures surfaced during Geimer's civil suit against Polanski, which she filed in 1988 and resulted in Polanski agreeing to pay her $500,000 plus interest (a sum Geimer struggled to collect).

CLEVELAND -- A former Cleveland school bus driver, Ariel Castro, agreed today to plead guilty and be imprisoned for life for kidnapping and raping three women he held captive in his house for about a decade in one of the most sensational criminal cases in the United States in recent years.

At a court hearing, Ohio prosecutors in turn agreed that Castro will not be eligible for the death penalty over the disappearance of the women from 2002 to 2004 before they were freed in May along with a 6-year-old girl who, according to DNA evidence, was fathered by Castro with one of his captives.

Many Americans were alternately elated when the three women were freed from Castro's house in a rundown neighborhood of Cleveland on May 6, and stunned by the details of his brutal treatment of them. The women had been bound for periods of time in chains or ropes and endured starvation, beatings and sexual assaults, according to court documents and a police report.

The three women whom Ariel Castro kidnapped, raped and tortured over an 11-year span are relieved by his guilty plea that spares them from testifying.

The three Cleveland women kidnapped, raped and tortured by Ariel Castro over an 11-year span are relieved that his guilty plea spares them from testifying.

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight "are satisfied by this resolution to the case, and are looking forward to having these legal proceedings draw to a final close in the near future," said a statement released by the law firm Jones Day, which is representing the women.

"They continue to desire their privacy. They do not wish to speak to the media or anyone else, and they thank people for continuing to respect their privacy as they grow stronger," the statement said.

Castro, 53, pleaded guilty Friday to 937 criminal counts of kidnapping, rape and aggravated murder. The terms of the plea mean he will likely receive life in prison with no possibility for parole, plus 1,000 years. He will be formally sentenced Thursday.

(CBS/AP) CLEVELAND - One of the three Cleveland kidnapping victims is set to testify against the man charged with holding them captive for up to ten years in his home, a source tells CBS News. It would be their first meeting between victim and captor since the three women escaped from the Cleveland home on May 6.

As part of a plea deal yet to be accepted by a judge, Ariel Castro pleaded guilty to holding the three women captive for about a decade.

Sources tell CBS News' investigative unit that one of the three women is expected to testify live in court during the Thursday hearing, during which Ariel Castro will be formally sentenced. The two other women may confront Castro via video, though those plans have not yet been finalized....

As a part of the deal, Castro pleaded guilty Friday to 937 charges, including aggravated murder, kidnapping and rape....

Earlier Friday, the three women said they are relieved that Ariel Castro has pleaded guilty to the charges that will keep him in prison for life.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Led by the Catholic Pope, Do Church and State Continue to Cover-up Child Abuse?
Child Safety July 24, 2013 By: Judy Byington

"Catholic Pope Francis's July 2013 ruling to protect perpetrators rather than their child victims and the 20 years it took Kevin Annett of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) to bring justice for 150,000 missing children from Canadian, Catholic and other church-run residential schools are only a few examples where church and state are blatantly covering up crimes against children," stated Judy Byington, CEO of Child Abuse Recovery (CAR http://www.ChildAbuseRecovery.com and author of "Twenty-Two Faces: Inside the Extraordinary Life of Jenny Hill and Her Twenty-Two Multiple Personalities" (Tate Publishing, Oklahoma: 2012 http://www.22faces.com ).

"That's why CAR and Neil Brick of Stop Mind Control and Ritual Abuse Today (S.M.A.R.T. http://ritualabuse.us ) are joining forces with the ITCCS on September 2 in New York to unite severe abuse survivors and expose child trafficking networks (time and place to be announced on http://www.itccs.org )."

SMART's annual conference which draws severe abuse survivors, their helpers and therapists from across the US, will be held August 9-11 in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, ( http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/ ).

....Saturday night of the SMART conference features Kevin Annett of the ITCCS (via live feed) and Judy Byington, author of "Twenty-Two Faces," the biography of Jenny Hill, the only-known survivor of a human sacrifice ceremony. Hill was made to witness the murder of another six year-old identified as Kathleen Shea. Although the murder took place back on June 21 1965, Hill's and Shea's cases in Garden Grove California and Tyrone Penn. remain unsolved.

"One complication for investigators is the often-inability of survivors like Hill, who are severely affected by their childhood torture, to come forward until they are adults - also a major problem for prosecutors in Catholic Priest sex abuse scandals," Byington says. "Another commonality is the very effective cover-ups of child abuse by perpetrators who have high ranking in church and state."

....Another example was when over an almost 20-year period, the Walter E. Fernald State residential school in Waltham Mass. enrolled children who were fed a steady diet of radioactive isotopes and placed in solitary confinement if they refused to cooperate. Allen Hornblum, Judith Newman, and Gregory Dober painfully describe the state residential school atrocities in their chilling new book, "Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America."....http://www.examiner.com/article/led-by-the-catholic-pope-church-and-state-continue-to-cover-up-child-abuse

Satanic cult blamed for ritualistic killing of Dartmoor foal which was horrifically mutilated in centre of ring of fire during full moon

....There are fears the stricken animal may have been alive during its ordeal
The pony was found in a remote part of Devon National Park on Tuesday
Patches of burned grass surrounded it and it had white paint on it's leg
By Stuart Woledge 25 July 2013

A Satanic cult has been blamed for the sickening death of a pony, which was found horrifically mutilated and laying in the remnants of a ring of fire after full moon....

It was also surrounded by circular patches of burnt moorland, which experts believe were left by a ring of torches or candles. The two-month old pony seemed to have been dragged into a clearing and placed at the foot of a slope to face the previous night’s full moon. It was found on Tuesday morning by a horse rider at Yennadon Down, a remote, area of Devon National Park....

Horse carers believe the butchery was part of an evil occult or Pagan ceremony by Devil worshippers....

Dartmoor and the surrounding countryside in Devon and Cornwall has been dogged by rumours of Satanic rituals for years. In 2012 a two-year-old horse called Eric belonging to Dawn Jewell, 27, was found mutilated on the day of satanic animal sacrifice....

The horrific attack happened on St Winebald Day, a date in the satanic calendar traditionally celebrated with bloody rituals. In 2006 around 100 sheep animals were found slaughtered....

The bodies had been arranged in a Satanic star shape, known as a pentangle, or laid out in a circle....

Book Review‘Against Their Will’ looks at children used for tests
By Dennis Rosen Globe Correspondent July 08, 2013

Unfortunately, as Allen Hornblum, Judith Newman, and Gregory Dober painfully describe in their chilling new book, “Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America,’’ Fernald was not the only institution in the country, or even in the state, where children were conscripted into sometimes deadly medical experiments. These were conducted by ambitious physicians and scientists whose belief in what they were trying to accomplish often blinded them to the potentially horrific consequences of their actions.

“Against Their Will’’ opens with an overview of the eugenics movement in the United States, which found sympathizers among many luminaries of American medicine in the 19th and early 20th centuries. With its disdain for the disabled, who were considered genetically inferior, the movement paved the way for use of “defective’’ children in research. The book then provides multiple examples of medical experiments perpetrated on developmentally delayed and physically disabled children at multiple institutions across the country over the course of decades.

Often reading like case studies straight out of the 1947 Nazi doctors’ trial, these include the forced castration of dozens of boys to prevent or halt regular masturbation; infecting developmentally delayed children as young as 4 with gonorrhea; and treating children as young as 6 who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia or autism with twice-daily doses of LSD for months on end.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

CLEVELAND — Prosecutors and lawyers for a Cleveland man accused of holding three women captive in his home for more than a decade signaled Wednesday that they are talking about a possible plea deal.

With a trial less than two weeks away, there was no mention of whether the prosecutor will seek the death penalty. Attorneys for Ariel Castro, 53, say a deal is dependent on taking the death penalty off the table.

“My understanding is that the parties have discussed possible pleas and that you're working to see if that would be an effective resolution, is that correct?” Judge Michael Russo asked.

Both sides responded “yes” without elaboration and left the courtroom without commenting. Last month, the judge had mentioned the possibility of a plea deal raised by the defense....

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the sons of a Cold War scientist who plunged to his death in 1953, just days after unwittingly taking LSD in a CIA mind-control experiment.

Frank Olson's sons claimed that the CIA murdered their father by pushing him from a 13th-story window of a New York hotel – and that he didn't jump to his death, as the agency contends.

Head of Family cult settles claim by accuser out of court
Mark Dunn Herald Sun July 29, 2011

ANNE Hamilton-Byrne, the former head of the Family cult, has made a secret out-of-court settlement with one of her alleged victims, who claimed he was routinely injected with LSD at her behest. Ms Hamilton-Bryne, who bleached the hair of children in the sect, and kept them hidden from the world, agreed to the settlement on Monday.

Supreme Court documents show at least five former cult members in the past four years have sued the self-appointed mystic for treatment they claimed to have suffered at her hands or under her direction.

It is believed Ms Hamilton-Byrne, who has dementia that her lawyers say renders her unable to remember the past, has settled at least two other actions and paid an undisclosed amount to shut down the legal actions....

In this week's settlement, Robert Rosanove, now aged 59, claimed he was regularly abused between 1961 and 1974, when he was raised as a member of the Family in a range of locations in Victoria, including Ferny Creek.

Mr Rosanove's statement of claim accuses Ms Hamilton-Byrne or her followers of subjecting him to abuse, including:

FORCIBLY administering psychoactive and hallucinogenic drugs, including LSD.
FALSELY "imprisoning" and "brainwashing" him.
FORCING him to take medications not legally prescribed and involuntary admissions to psychiatric institutions.
DEPRIVING him of "normal social interaction with other children and adults".

Mr Rosanove said he suffers bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress, severe depression, anxiety and sleep problems as a result of the alleged abuse....

Ms Hamilton-Byrne, through her litigation guardian, denied the abuse claims.
In her defence statement, Ms Hamilton-Byrne argued the courts should not allow Mr Rosanove's law suit to continue because it was too long ago.

....For years, Anne Hamilton-Byrne ran a bizarre cult known as The Family. But, this was no ordinary family. Children stolen at birth ... brainwashed ... beaten …even given mind-altering drugs like LSD.

The list of abuses at her isolated retreat outside Melbourne goes on. It was a true house of horrors. Throughout it all, Hamilton-Byrne was helped by a group of unquestioning followers, including a sinister inner-circle of women known as the Aunties.
To these disciples she was the re-incarnation of Jesus Christ. Her word gospel....http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com/stories/870619/the-family

Last month we told how the Cabinet Office had been battling for months to keep documents about Savile’s award secret.

And we revealed an unnamed minister had argued against their ­disclosure but was overruled by the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Today he can be identified as ­Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude.

The 60-year-old served in Mrs Thatcher’s government and ­organised her funeral in April.

He also leads the current ­Government’s transparency “agenda” but suggested releasing the papers could harm ongoing Savile investigations by the Department of Health.

Cabinet Office officials also argued the ­confidentiality of the honours system might be ­under­- mined by ­disclosure. But the ICO ruled there was a “compelling public interest” in releasing the files and told the Cabinet Office to hand them over.

Last week they were made public and showed Mrs Thatcher’s repeated attempts to have Savile knighted despite warnings of his behaviour.

They show she tried four times to make him a “Sir” without success, before getting her way in 1990.

And they reveal aides described him as a “strange and complex man” and voiced fears over revelations about his private life.

282 join RCMP sexual harassment class-action lawsuit
121 of the plaintiffs, who are either current or former Mounties, are from B.C. CBC News Jun 11, 2013

Almost 300 current and former female Mounties have come forward to join a class-action lawsuit alleging harassment within the ranks of the RCMP.

Documents filed in B.C. Supreme Court Monday in support of class-action certification say the action now includes 282 women from all territories and provinces across Canada, with the exception of P.E.I. The largest provincial contingent of women who joined, 121, are from B.C., while 46 of the women are from Ontario. Another 35 are from Alberta.

The lawyers arguing the lawsuit say 100 of the complainants are still with the force, either as officers, civilian members, or public service employees.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Ariel Castro, Cleveland kidnapping suspect, appears in court - video
Ariel Castro, who is suspected of kidnapping and raping three women in Cleveland, Ohio, appears in court on Wednesday. During the hearing, at which charges against the 53-year-old are read out, the judge repeatedly has to ask Castro to lift his head and open his eyes. Amanda Berry, Gina Dejesus and Michelle Knight escaped from the man's property in Mayhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jul/18/ariel-castro-cleveland-arraignment-court-video

Ariel Castro pleads not guilty to new indictment (video)
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Accused kidnapper and murderer Ariel Castro pleaded not guilty this morning to a 977-count indictment..., but not before he was admonished by a judge to raise his head and open his eyes during his appearance in court.

Revealed: Lady Thatcher's FIVE attempts to secure knighthood for Jimmy Savile while her aides warned of his 'strange and complex' life
Tory PM first asked he be made 'Sir' Jimmy in 1984, secret documents show
Civil servants warned her off because of his boasts about his 'lurid' sex life
He was finally knighted in 1990, Lady Thatcher's final year in office

By Vanessa Allen 17 July 2013

Margaret Thatcher made repeated attempts to win a knighthood for Jimmy Savile despite warnings about his ‘manner of life’.

The former prime minister made at least five requests for the now-disgraced DJ to be considered for the top honour, but senior civil servants voiced fears about his ‘strange and complex’ private life.

Previously unseen documents from the Cabinet Office reveal the extent of unease about the BBC presenter, almost three decades before he was finally unmasked as a predatory paedophile.

There is no suggestion that Baroness Thatcher or her aides were aware of his vile abuse of children as young as eight.

But the official documents show that while BBC bosses were apparently willing to ignore the presenter’s private life, Whitehall mandarins privately voiced their misgivings about handing him a knighthood.

The files, made public under the Freedom of Information Act, show Mrs Thatcher wanted to bestow the honour to reward Savile’s charity work....

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Hungry aboriginal people subject of experiments, paper finds
Food historian published details of experiments that began in the 1940s
The Canadian Press
Jul 16, 2013

The Canadian government says it's appalled to hear hungry aboriginal children and adults may have been used as unwitting subjects in nutritional experiments by federal bureaucrats.

Recently published research by food historian Ian Mosby has revealed details about one of the least-known but perhaps most disturbing aspects of government policy toward aboriginal people immediately after the Second World War.

"It was experiments being conducted on malnourished aboriginal people," Mosby, a post-doctoral fellow in history at the University of Guelph, told CBC's As It Happens program on Tuesday.

"It started with research trips in northern Manitoba where they found, you know, widespread hunger, if not starvation, among certain members of the community. And one of their immediate responses was to design a controlled experiment on the effectiveness of vitamin supplementation on this population."

Satan worshiper gets life in prison for killing, skinning mom
By Matt Hamilton July 17, 2013

A Maywood man whom prosecutors described as a Satan worshiper was sentenced Wednesday for strangling and killing his mother, then dismembering her body.

Moises Meraz-Espinoza, 21, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the Feb. 2, 2011, slaying of Amelia Espinoza, 42.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Thomas I. McKnew Jr. said Meraz-Espinoza's crime "ranks right up there at the top" among "the most disgusting, hideous, and vulgar" cases he's seen in more than 50 years in the legal profession....

Prosecutors argued that Meraz-Espinoza was a follower of the church of Satan, and that he was performing a ritual human sacrifice.

Law enforcement officials announced Monday that a recent five-week sweep snared more than 250 suspected child predators, including nine teachers and three clergymen.

Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement John Morton said that 255 child predators were arrested and 61 child victims were rescued in so-called "Operation iGuardian," which targeted online sexual abusers as well as those who possess, produce or trade child pornography.

Morton said that the international investigation, which ran from May 28 to June 30, revealed that online sexual abuse is pervasive and growing....

Twenty-two of the victims were 9 years old or younger -- including four under the age of 3. The remaining 39 children were between the ages of 10 and 17, according to the ICE news release.

Of those arrested, 20 people were charged with online sexual enticement of a minor, with the remaining 235 people charged with child pornography production, possession or distribution of child pornography, traveling with the intent to have sex with a minor, or other offenses, including rape, according to the ICE release....

The truth behind the child abuse cover-ups
The report that first exposed child abuse in North Wales care homes has finally been published. But, says Eileen Fairweather, damning details have still been left out

By Eileen Fairweather 13 Jul 2013

Seventeen years ago, a nervous-sounding woman rang and asked me to publicise a top-secret report. She was not the whistleblower, she explained, but a go-between. She would not give me her name: “It’s safer if you don’t know.”

That secret report revealed the extensive rape and savage beating of countless children in North Wales children’s homes. It was titled “Child Abuse: An independent investigation commissioned by Clwyd County Council, period 1974-1995”. Last week, John Jillings’s report on the Clwyd scandal was finally published. But Flintshire county council – successor to Clwyd – has heavily censored it. I dug out the original and discovered, unsurprisingly, that the cover-up continues....

as one investigation rapidly led to another, and I realised that paedophiles had comprehensively infiltrated Britain’s children’s homes since the 1970s.

Back in 1996, only a handful of local politicians and officials were allowed a copy of Jillings’s report. They were told – by police, insurers and the council – that they risked their careers, arrest and being personally sued if a word reached the media. The uncensored Jillings report includes these chilling threats.

Every report had a number, imprinted as a large watermark on every page. Any journalist who quoted it would supposedly be ordered by the courts to produce their copy or photocopy or face jail, and the watermark would expose their source....

Jillings, in the non-redacted report, reveals that one head of a home who allegedly cruelly beat boys even had a post secured for him by Clwyd at an exotic holiday destination abroad. Might some who failed to act now be investigated for neglect or conspiracy? When does inertia become criminal?

Many children ran away, but police returned them, weeping, to their abusers. At Bryn Estyn – famously described by Jillings as “the Colditz of residential care” – one boy was crammed into a laundry basket, the lid tied shut and tossed into a swimming pool. Other children saved him from drowning....

The real martyrs are the care children who killed themselves or died violently. Jillings lists 12. He called them R1, R2, etc, with just a few poignant lines about their deaths by hanging or falling from heights. My hand ached after I wrote out that report, and so did my heart.

Stuart Hall faces new rape allegations
Fresh allegations of rape and sexual assault against Stuart Hall have emerged, after he was jailed for 15 months for a string of child sex offences. By Daniel Johnson 15 Jul 2013

Five new claims, including the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl, have been made against the former BBC broadcaster, it has been reported.

The former It’s A Knockout presenter, 83, was jailed last month after admitting 14 counts of indecent assault against girls as young as nine between 1967 and 1987.

Police investigating over 50 allegations of sexual and physical abuse at former children's home
Police investigating abuse at council-run Beechwood home in Mapperley
Six victims previously came forward in 2011, five years after the home shut
Also looking at claims of abuse at three other Nottinghamshire homes
By Daily Mail Reporter 14 July 2013
Police are investigating more than 50 allegations of physical or sexual abuse at a former children's home.

Nottinghamshire Police said they are investigating claims that people were abused at the council-run Beechwood Children's Home in Mapperley, Nottinghamshire.

To Be Published January 13th 2014 by Routledge – 192 pages
978-0-415-71807-3

Dissociative disorders are one of the psychiatric consequences of childhood psychological trauma. While oppression is an aspect of traumatic conditions, dissociation undermines resistance to oppression throughout a person’s lifespan. Neither oppression nor dissociation are restricted to particular cultures, and both can affect the individual as well as societies.

This collection engages with the universality of dissociative disorders and their close relationship to oppression. The chapters cover extreme examples such as ongoing incest in adulthood, children and adults forced to kill others, and abusive states in interrogation. Further subjects examined include the utilization of dissociation in postmodern societies to maintain oppression, the oppressive conditions of asylum seekers and the consequences of oppression as they are dealt with in psychotherapy. The final chapter considers how a paedophile pandering network employed multi-layered oppression to prevent the public becoming aware of the widespread and organised abuse of children....http://www.routledgementalhealth.com/books/details/9780415718073/

Penn State trustees authorize settlements with victims of Jerry Sandusky
At least 30 men have come forward to claim that Jerry Sandusky, pictured leaving the Centre County (Penn.) Courthouse after having been sentenced in October, sexually abused them as children.
By M. Alex Johnson, Staff Writer, NBC News July 12, 2013

Penn State University trustees gave the go-ahead Friday for the school to start making settlement offers to some of the child sexual abuse victims of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

No settlement agreements have been signed, the university said in a statement, adding that negotiations with men who have made claims against the school are confidential.

Freeh found that Graham Spanier, then the university's president, two other senior executives and legendary football coach Joe Paterno "failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade." Paterno died last year.

ABSTRACT This article describes the application of transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP) to the treatment of former child soldiers suffering from dissociative identity disorder. It focuses on the problems with aggression faced in psychotherapy. TFP provides a psychodynamic, object relations model to understand the aggression arising in psychotherapy, focusing on the transference and countertransference in the here and now of the therapeutic relationship. Aggression is considered an essential and vital inner dynamic aimed at autonomy, distancing, and the prevention of injury and dependency. In extremely traumatized patients there may be aggressive and oppressive inner parts that want total control-identifying with childhood aggressors-thus avoiding vulnerability. According to TFP it is vital that this aggression is addressed as belonging to the patients themselves in order to reach some form of integration, balance, and health. This is illustrated in a case description.http://www.researchgate.net/publication/235619397_Transference-focused_psychotherapy_with_former_child_soldiers_meeting_the_murderous_self

This qualitative study investigated how Holocaust survivors managed to lead "normal" lives after experiencing incomprehensible horror. It was based on structural dissociation theory (O. Van der Hart, E. R. S. Nijenhuis, & K. Steele, 2006), which postulates that when people encounter traumatic events that they cannot integrate into their ongoing mental lives, their personalities may divide into 2 distinct action systems: the apparently normal part of the personality (ANP; involving systems that manage functions of daily life) and the emotional part of the personality (EP; involving systems related to the traumatic memory). Failure to integrate also leads to nonrealization of the traumatic experience. Research participants were 20 people randomly selected from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's oral history archives. Their interviews were analyzed in terms of structural dissociation and nonrealization in order to develop a narrative about the stages of their post-war lives. In the 1st stage (Surviving the Camps: Formation of Traumatic Memories), the experience of surviving the camps created traumatic emotional memories. In the 2nd stage (Post-War Adjustment: Creating the ANP by Splitting Off the Traumatic Memories Into an EP), survivors' desire to create a normal post-war life led them to split off their traumatic memories. In the 3rd stage (Developing the Motivation to Remember), survivors' changed life context motivated them to confront the previously split-off material. In the 4th stage (Creating a Historical Self: Integration of the ANP and EP), survivors integrated past experience into their lives, although the impact of the trauma never fully disappeared.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

New demands that ‘unfounded charges’ against abuse whistleblower be dropped. 07/10/13 Hella Winston

With the Brooklyn district attorney’s case against chasidic sex abuse whistleblower Sam Kellner seemingly falling apart amid mounting evidence that Kellner’s main accuser may have been manipulated and paid to lodge false charges against him, sexual abuse survivors and advocates are taking to the streets to protest the DA’s conduct in the case.

Abuse survivor, advocate and writer Chaim Levin has organized a protest for Thursday outside the Jay Street offices of Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes to support Kellner and, according to Levin’s Facebook post about the protest, “demand that the unfounded charges against [Kellner] be dropped immediately.”

In an interview with The Jewish Week on Tuesday, Levin said that Kellner — who reported his son’s allegations against Baruch Lebovits to police and helped bring forward more alleged Lebovits victims to the DA — is “paying a really big price for what he did and we need to stand up for him.”

“He did more than my parents did,” Levin continued. “He reported a crime. He lost his job, his housing, for a case where they have nothing on him. And we still don’t have any idea about what is happening with Lebovits.” (Lebovits, a cantor and prominent member of the Munkacs chasidic community, was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to 10 to 32 years in jail; his conviction was overturned on a technicality and no new trial date has been set.)....http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new-york-news/kellner-case-collapses-abuse-advocates-mobilize

Pope Francis overhauled the laws that govern the Vatican city-state on Thursday, criminalizing leaks of Vatican information and specifically listing sexual violence, prostitution, and possession of child pornography as crimes against children that can be punished by up to 12 years in prison.

The legislation covers clergy and laypeople who live and work in Vatican City and is different from the canon law which covers the universal Catholic Church.

excerpts:
"Some of the parents whose children attended the preschool became suspicious when their children returned home wearing underwear not their own, or with their clothes inside out or with their hair wet. There were always reasonable explanations: the child had an accident and was changed into clothes on hand for that purpose; or the child splashed water on herself when the children were cleaning up; and so forth. However, when one of the children made an outcry, the parents more closely scrutinized the strange behaviors some of the children had started engaging in and the aforementioned episodes, and they took their concerns to the police. The police took the concerns seriously and collected statements and evidence. The grand jury found a basis for indictment. The Kellers responded to the warrant for their arrest by fleeing the state in disguise, obtaining false identifications in their new personas, and attempting to leave the country. They were apprehended in Las Vegas, Nevada and extradited back to Travis County."

"The case ended with the conviction of the Kellers and their sentencing to 48 years in prison each. They are in prison still, any efforts for appeal having failed to date."

"the perspective was one of advocacy for falsely accused, persecuted, prosecuted, and convicted victims of a malicious or inept legal system that places too much trust in the stories children tell. A particular flaw in this story was the story. It was certainly not founded on anything I witnessed during my participation in the case. Evidence was not withheld from the prosecution to my knowledge. The defense was left flat-footed by their own conviction that the children would not be believed. And the advice I offered may have helped to prevent influence or contamination of the children’s testimony. The children’s stories were credible – Fran and Dan Keller’s defense was not."

Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an important mental health issue in terms of the number of people affected and the morbidity and functional impairment associated with the disorder. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of all treatments for PTSD....

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that patients and providers have a variety of options for choosing an effective treatment for PTSD. Substantial differences in study design and study participant characteristics make identification of a single best treatment difficult. Not all medications or psychotherapies are effective.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23842024/

Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews.

From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners.

The women were signed up for the surgery while they were pregnant and housed at either the California Institution for Women in Corona or Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, which is now a men’s prison.

Former inmates and prisoner advocates maintain that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future....

California still grapples with an ugly past: Under compulsory sterilization laws here and in 31 other states, minority groups, the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill and criminals were singled out as inferior and sterilized to prevent them from spreading their genes.

Guatemalan syphilis victims lose hope in legal battle against US
Thousands of Guatemalans were intentionally infected with STDs in the 1940s by US public health researchers. An appeal on their case against the US government was dismissed this week.

By Romina Ruiz-Goriena, Contributor June 14, 2013

As a nine-year-old child, Marta recalled seeing her name on a list to go to the doctor’s office. An orphan, she had been living in the National Education Center since the age of six.

Before long, she would be prodded and poked every week for a year, receiving shots in her hip and shoulder, and having blood drawn.

“My mother tells us that she would ask over and over again, 'why are you doing this if I am not even sick?'" says Luis Estuardo Vasquez Orellana, one of Marta Lidia Orellana Guerra’s five children. His mother, who is still alive today, also underwent unnecessary back surgery and was left to rest hanging upside down on and off in post-surgery recovery for months.

It was 1946, and Ms. Orellana was one of thousands of Guatemalans who were unwittingly subjected to secret human experiments led by US doctors.

The experiments were brought to light by a US researcher in 2009, and a legal battle on behalf of victims and their families ensued. But now, nearly three years after beginning the legal battle in US courts, attorneys representing an estimated 5,000 Guatemalan victims used as guinea pigs and infected with sexually transmitted diseases in the 1940s by US public health researchers withdrew their appeal earlier this week, virtually ending the case against the US government.....

The dismissal comes a year after a US District Court ruled the United States was protected under two immunity laws, the Federal Tort Claims Act and the International Organization Immunities Act.

“We pulled out rather than prolong litigation,” says Christian Levesque, an attorney with DC-based Conrad & Scherer LLP who is working on the case. “At this time it is more appropriate to pursue political redress.” Pursuing justice for these victims in the US could include reparations through lobbying Congress.

Milford’s newest Living Treasure is a military hero and a knight
By Milford Mirror Staff on July 10, 2013
....Before all this, military life absorbed Muth. He volunteered to become a “victim” of government experiments on brainwashing techniques, both physical and chemical.

These experiments were authorized by the Department of Defense, orchestrated by Army Intelligence, funded by the CIA and conducted by the Army Chemical Corps, according to documents. The programs and experiments were so risky that several of the 7,800 men who were test subjects died.

According to online documentation, the research programs at issue concentrated at the Army’s facilities at the Edgewood Arsenal and Fort Detrick, Md., allegedly tested more than 400 different chemical and biological substances during five decades in locations throughout the U.S. and abroad, and involved an estimated 100,000 active duty military personnel.

“I was one of the fortunate ones who was able to lead a normal life, raise normal children and enjoy my career and family, although I have permanent physical disabilities that are attributable to my military career,” Muth said, though he declined to specify or elaborate on those disabilities.

Muth received an honorable discharge from the Army in 1959. The experiments were so secret, however, that it wasn’t until the spring of 2004, some 45 years later, that a former high-ranking government official who participated in administration of these experiments acknowledged his contributions....

A Government Accounting Office report in 1994, which the Mirror obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, acknowledged that during Word War II and the Cold War era, the Department of Defense and other national security agencies conducted or sponsored extensive radiological, chemical and biological research programs. Part of the report states:

“The effects of the tests and experiments are often difficult to determine. Although some participants suffered immediate acute injuries and some died, in other cases adverse health problems were not discovered until many years later — often 20 to 30 years or longer.”

- US Abuse Survivor Networks Unite with ITCCS
- Survivor of paedophile network that killed two of his brothers blasts report for failing to name the guilty
- New book documents Cold War experiments on kids
- Babies Seeing Violence Show Aggression Later

The ITCCS has joined members of over fifty survivor groups in twenty one nations including the USA, Canada, England, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Italy, France, Spain and Holland. Neil Brick, founder of Stop Mind Control and Ritual Abuse Today (SMART) and Author-retired therapist Judy Byington of Child Abuse Recovery represent ritual abuse, Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) and government mind-control survivors and therapists in the US.

On Monday, September 2, the directors will hold a joint press conference with Kevin Annett in New York City to disclose their plans for a joint campaign to unite cult abuse survivors and expose and prosecute the guilty persons and institutions. (Time and place to be announced at www.itccs.org).

On August 9 –11, 2013 at the DoubleTree Hotel in Windsor Locks, CT at the 16th Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/ Kevin Annett will do a live video feed on "Overcoming Adversity: Advocacy Efforts, Achieving Justice, Abused Children and Government Mind Control Experiments" while Judy Byington will address the "Nine Secrets of Dissociation: How Jenny Hill's 22 Multiple Personalities Formed, Function and Protect."....

In 2007, the global nature of child rape, torture, murder and trafficking was verified by 1,471 abuse survivors from 20 countries who responded to the Extreme Abuse Surveys: http://extreme-abuse-survey.net/ ....

On May 8, 2013 in Holland, Kevin Annett interviewed Toos Nijenhuis, a psychotherapist who was the victim of ritualized torture similar to the kind Hill explained in "Twenty-Two Faces." Ms. Nijenhuis discussed her victimization in an international trafficking network involving prominent politicians and Catholic Cardinals during the 1960's, including her knowledge of a child sacrificial ceremony that took place in rural Holland in 2010....

Survivor of paedophile network that killed two of his brothers blasts report for failing to name the guilty 9 Jul 2013 By Tom Pettifor, Luke Traynor

Chris Johns suffered at the hands of abusers in North Wales care homes for years
The survivor of a paedophile ring blamed over the death of his two brothers last night slammed a report into the scandal for failing to name the beasts involved.

Chris Johns, who suffered at the hands of abusers in North Wales care homes for years, said the full truth was still being hushed up despite the files being released yesterday – 17 years after they were written.

He said his brothers Adrian and Leander were killed to stop them revealing the horrific details of sex attacks carried out on children from all over Britain. He said: “It’s just another cover-up. This report doesn’t even name names. Half of them got away with what they did.”

The 300-page Jillings Report was thought to have been destroyed, but it resurfaced last year when the North Wales children’s home scandal came back into focus with explosive claims the number of victims could be as high as 200.

It lists details of 12 young men whose deaths were thought to have been linked to the abuse they suffered between the late 60s and 80s. It even suggests serving police officers from the time and council staff could have been named as suspects....

Mr Johns’ brother Adrian, 32, died in 1992 in an arson attack before he had a chance to give a statement about the abuse he suffered at the Bryn Alyn home in the 1970s.
He suffered at the hands of paedophile John Allen, who made a fortune running a number of homes.

Leander survived the attack in Brighton with awful burns and in 1995 both he and Chris gave evidence against Allen. Leander, 34, known as Lea, died days later from an overdose, which Chris and his family have always questioned. During the week between Leander’s evidence and his death, Allen had absconded from bail.

New book documents Cold War experiments on kids
By Joann Loviglio of The Associated Press Monday, July 8, 2013

PHILADELPHIA — A half century later, Charlie Dyer still vividly remembers the day he was picked to join the "Fernald Science Club."

It was 1954 and at 14, he had already spent nearly half his life in a succession of Massachusetts institutions that unflinchingly labeled kids like him "morons." But his new place, the Fernald State School in Waltham, seemed like it might be different.

"They picked some of the oldest guys and asked us if we wanted to be in this club," Dyer, 72, said in an interview from his home in Watertown, Mass. "We all got together and decided, why not? We'll get time off the grounds."....

It took decades before Dyer learned that he and the boys he still considers brothers were little more than guinea pigs. A state task force in 1994 found Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists fed the unwitting boys radioactive oatmeal and milk for a Quaker Oats nutrition study.

His story is one of many told in a new book, "Against Their Will," the result of five years of gathering data from medical and university libraries and archives, medical journals and records from many of the now-shuttered state hospitals and orphanages where experiments were conducted....

"These are throwaway, unwanted, damaged people," said Allen Hornblum, one of the book's authors. "You had the best and the brightest minds doing this stuff, doing it very cavalierly and doing it exclusively to the most vulnerable."

While researching his 1998 book "Acres of Skin" about medical experiments on inmates in Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia, Hornblum came across documentation about similar experiments conducted on children and even infants.

Thousands of children warehoused in overcrowded orphanages and facilities for "feebleminded" children underwent spinal taps, lobotomies and electric shock. They were also exposed to viruses, radioactive and hazardous chemicals and were administered psychotropic drugs.

Often lacking legal or family advocates, they were treated in the decades after World War II as cheap and abundant raw material for trials that proved lucrative for scientists who conducted the tests and for the institutions housing the kids....

In one of the most egregious cases in the book, more than 90 children as young as 6 were given large twice-daily doses of LSD — some for a year or more — as an experimental treatment for schizophrenia and autism at Creedmoor State Hospital in the New York City borough of Queens in the 1960s.

On New York's Staten Island from the 1950s to the early 1970s, mentally disabled children at the Willowbrook State School — famously called a "snake pit" by Sen. Robert Kennedy after a 1965 visit — were intentionally infected with viral hepatitis by feeding them an extract made from the feces of infected patients.

In dozens of orphanages and sanitariums, children were exposed to hepatitis, meningitis, ringworm, influenza, measles, mumps and polio in the name of medical advancement. Dietary experiments induced severe vitamin and mineral deficiencies to observe the effect on the children's health.

Babies Seeing Violence Show Aggression Later
June 17, 2013 — Aggression in school-age children may have its origins in children 3 years old and younger who witnessed violence between their mothers and partners, according to a new Case Western Reserve University study.

"People may think children that young are passive and unaware, but they pay attention to what's happening around them," said Megan Holmes, assistant professor of social work at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland.

Between three and 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence each year, according the National Center for Children Exposed to Violence.

Holmes said researchers know the impact of recent exposure to violence, but little information has been available about the long-term effect from the early years of life. To her knowledge, she said her study is the first to look at the effect of early exposure to domestic violence and its impact on the development of social behavior.

In the study, "The sleeper effect of intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure: long-term consequences on young children's aggressive behavior," Holmes analyzed the behavior of 107 children exposed to IPV in their first three years but never again after age 3. The outcomes of those children were compared to 339 children who were never exposed....

Analyzing aggressive behaviors, Holmes saw no behavioral differences between those who did or did not witness violence between the ages of 3 and 5, but children exposed to violence increased their aggression when they reached school age. And the more frequently IPV was witnessed, the more aggressive the behaviors became.

Meanwhile, children never exposed to IPV gradually decreased in aggression....

UN tells Vatican to hand over details of child sex abuse cases
A United Nations committee has demanded that the Vatican reveal potentially explosive details about the systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy.

By Nick Squires, Rome 09 Jul 2013

Campaigners have called on Pope Francis, who was elected in March, to make tackling the issue of sexually abusive priests an urgent priority of his papacy.

The UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child released its demands for information from the Holy See on Tuesday.

The committee said that "in the light of the recognition by the Holy See of sexual violence against children committed by members of the clergy, brothers and nuns in numerous countries around the world, and given the scale of the abuses", the Vatican should provide detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse committed by clergy.

The Vatican was told to show whether it had implemented measures "to ensure that no member of the clergy currently accused of sexual abuse be allowed to remain in contact with children," amid claims from around the world that bishops often moved abusive priests from one parish to another.

Judge who gave pervert Stuart Hall just 15 months was forced to quit after being caught visiting a gay brothel

Judge Anthony Russell QC criticised for 'unduly lenient' sentence
He resigned in 1996 in wake of gay brothel scandal, it emerges
Alleged to have entered 'dark room' with doctor and hospital porter
Later reinstated and rose up the ranks to become a senior judge

By Jaya Narain 24 June 2013

A judge who provoked outrage by jailing Stuart Hall for just 15 months for child sex offences once quit his post after being caught in a gay brothel.

Anthony Russell’s legal career looked to be over when he was forced to admit visiting the male-only sauna.

He was said to have gone into a ‘dark room’ inside the club with a leading doctor and a hospital porter.

Following a ‘sting’ by a Sunday newspaper in 1996, he resigned as part-time recorder of Bolton and gave up his position as the top lawyer for the Inland Revenue.

Five years later he was reinstated, however, and has since gone on to become a senior judge – the role in which he handed Hall his jail sentence last week.

Yeshiva University High School former students file $380 million sex abuse lawsuit
The school ‘was allowing known sexual predators to roam the school at will seeking other victims,’ says attorney Kevin Mulhearn, who filed the suit on behalf of the 19 plaintiffs.
By Michael O'keeffe / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, July 8, 2013

Chancellor of Yeshiva University Rabbi Norman Lamm announced his retirement on Monday, July 1, 2013, Lamm said he was wrong in the way he handled allegations of sexual abuse at the university’s high school decades ago. Lamm is stepping down after decades at the university amid an ongoing investigation into accusations of abuse by alumni.

Nineteen former students at Yeshiva University High School have filed a bombshell $380 million lawsuit against the prestigious Jewish institution claiming horrific acts of sexual abuse that went unchecked for two decades at the Manhattan school.

"Yeshiva University High School held itself out as an exemplary Jewish secondary school when in fact it was allowing known sexual predators to roam the school at will seeking other victims," said attorney Kevin Mulhearn, who filed the suit on behalf of the 19 plaintiffs. "Childhood sexual abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community can no longer be condoned and excused.”

They spoke out in a video, saying the encouragement of family, friends and the public has enabled them to restart their lives
The brave victims of the Ohio kidnappings have revealed how they are restarting their lives after their ordeal in the house of horror.

In a moving video released today, Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32, flashed big smiles as they spoke for the first time since being rescued.